Araya

Margot Benacerraf's 1959 Venezuelan documentary tells of a day at the salt flats of the Araya peninsula in the northeast, worked by hand for five hundred years. The camera follows three families: those who carry salt, the fishermen and the potters. The cycle from morning to night also sets the film's structure. Benacerraf shot it immediately before mechanisation began, and the film is deliberately a record: this form of work disappeared soon after. The photography is extremely compositional; the salt heaps, the shadows and the bodies build an almost abstract order. The narration is poetic and delivered in voice-over. It shared the critics' prize at Cannes with Hiroshima mon amour. Who it's for: viewers interested in the history of documentary and Latin American cinema. Who it's not for: anyone wanting incident, or who will find the poetic narration excessive.